There undermines an oak, tears up his root:...
As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn
Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow).
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin[7]
To chide the river for his clam'rous din;...
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of that too-careless spring...
Among the rest a shepherd (though but young,
Yet hearten'd to his pipe), with all the skill
His few years could, began to fit his quill.
By Tavy's speedy stream he fed his flock,
Where when he sat to sport him on a rock,
The water-nymphs would often come unto him,
And for a dance with many gay gifts woo him.
Now posies of this flower, and then of that;
Now with fine shells, then with a rushy hat,
With coral or red stones brought from the deep
To make him bracelets, or to mark his sheep.'

W. BROWNE: _Britannia's Pastorals_.

[Footnote 7: Cease.]

Tavistock is a quiet little 'ancient borough,' which at the first glance
from the hill to the north-west suggests the early-Victorian word
'embowered,' for it looks as if the rudiments of the town had arisen in
the midst of a large wood. The town lies chiefly in a hollow, and the
trees that cover the sides surround and encroach upon the streets in the
pleasantest way, and their foliage, the hills on every side, and the
rushing Tavy through the midst, give an un-townlike air that is
charming. But to imagine, from this rustic and very still look, that the
place lacked history, would be to make a great mistake. On the contrary,
its history starts in such very early days that only a few scattered
relics remain to show the wave of human life that passed over the
country.

Between A.D. 240 and the latter half of the sixth century, the Irish
made many invasions, overran the South and West of England, and settled
colonies in parts of Devon and Cornwall, more especially along their
northern coasts. Mr Baring-Gould, in a most interesting paper, sketches
out the various descents and settlements, and traces them by their stone
monuments and by the names of the Irish saints that they left in
churches and villages and holy wells. Some of the invaders established
themselves near Tavistock, and tokens of them have been found in the
neighbourhood in the shape of three stones bearing inscriptions--one in
Ogha